Friday, February 24, 2017

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso

The Woman
Next Door explores the rivalry between two long-time residents of Katterijn,
an upscale South African Estate community. Hortensia, an 84-year-old, highly
successful, black textile designer whose husband has died after a long illness,
is originally from Barbados by way of England. Marion, a white, 81-year-old,
ground-breaking architect, is a recent widow left penniless by her husband’s
debts. She’s preparing to sell her home and doesn’t how she’ll survive
afterward. The women have lived next to each other for twenty years and their
dislike of one another is legendary. “It was known that the two women shared
hedge and hatred and they pruned both with a vim that belied their ages.”

Hortensia and Marion ruminate on their past lives and how
they got to their present circumstances. Left unsettled by revelations in her
husband’s will, Hortensia decides to remodel her home. Marion was the architect
who designed Hortensia’s house. It was her first completed work and it brought
her recognition as an architect. She’d wanted to buy it herself, but
circumstances denied her wish twice. Marion rules the homeowner’s committee of
their estate so an unexpected claim for restitution by descendants of slaves
formerly quartered at Katterijn, weighs on her. She’s a woman who sees objects
clearly but is unable or unwilling to see what’s actually happening around
her.

An accident with a crane at the beginning of the
remodeling leaves Marion’s house in shambles and Hortensia with a debilitating injury.
Hortensia detests the nurses sent to care for her and in a series of ingenious scenes
sends them all running. Thus the two women, one homeless, and one in need of an
adult to stay with her are thrown together. Hortensia plans no interaction with
Marion and both retain their dislike for each other until circumstances
intervene. Additional plot twists best encountered by the reader, move the
narrative toward resolution.

The exquisite writing and the fact that these are not “Hallmark
card” women separate this from formulaic fiction about women of a certain age.
Hortensia and Marion have more in common with literature’s curmudgeonly men
than with the sweet octogenarians sipping tea often portrayed in novels. The Woman Next Door exhibits charm, but
it is charm laced with acid as seen in a description of Hortensia. “She got
good at chopping off the legs of people with no knife, only words.”

The novel is unique in its portrait of the racist system
that empowered Marion and her ilk. Years previously, Marion’s twelve-year-old granddaughter,
Lara, asked why there were two different kinds of toilet paper in the house.
Marion explained that two-ply was more expensive and “considering her station
in life, it seemed perfectly reasonable to expect Agnes (the black housekeeper)
to manage with one-ply.” Later Marian asks Agnes why she keeps her toilet rolls
in the main pantry and Agnes explains that they aren’t hers. “Ma’am, I buy my
own.”

“Why
do you buy your own?” Marion asked. Whatever could have changed? She’d been
working there for decades and understood the rules.

One
day, soon after this conversation, when Agnes was distracted with laundry,
Marion stole into the granny-flat to inspect the bathroom. There was the
offending toilet paper. Three-ply. It turned her cheeks crimson and (never to
be outdone), on her next trip to Woolworth's, Marion selected a large supply of
white three-ply toilet roll for herself.”

Only rarely do we have the opportunity to read a novel with
entertaining characters who speak in caustic dialogue, a novel that charms us
with witty repartee, and one which teaches us the lasting impact of history
without preaching at us. The Woman Next
Door is that novel.

Summing
it Up: The Woman Next Door is
enlightening, entertaining, honest, wry, and hope-filled. Reading it embeds you
in Cape Town today and as it was under apartheid as you watch two acerbic women
recall their lives.

Yewande Omotoso was born in Barbados, grew up in Nigeria,
and moved to South Africa in 1992. Bom
Boy, her first novel, was shortlisted for several fiction prizes. The Woman Next Door is a finalist for
the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize. Omotoso lives in Johannesburg where she writes and
has an architectural practice. Her experiences clearly contribute to the realism of
the novel.

"An
intimate, frequently hilarious look at the lives of two extraordinary women in
post-apartheid South Africa...Deeply satisfying...The vivid setting and
intricate descriptions transport the reader to this very specific time and
place, though the crackling dialog and lively, fiercely independent
protagonists are universal" Booklist

About Me - Trina Hayes

Connecting people with books they'll love is what I do. I lead three book clubs and participate in another. I speak about books to library, university, social and civic groups and I'd love to speak to your gathering. My annual book list of the more than 100 books I read and review every year comes out every November. Find past lists on the pages listed below. Because I'm always hungry for good books, I categorize the books on the lists and on my posts by food groups as explained in the review categories listed below.

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